Making wise decisions in spite of myself.
January 12, 2009
The weekend was one of those weekends that makes you wish you’d shopped at the motivation store more often in your childhood.
I accomplished, but not much.
Laundry is almost completely done – a fact that is both wonderful and insane, considering the amount of clothes my daughter has managed to collect in 8 months. Holy moly, 8 months?!!?
And those aren’t even her daily school clothes, which are at my parents!
I’m beginning to come to grips with the fact that no one is ever prepared to plan a wedding and to become more calm in that chaos.
In other words, I’m not going to freak out until the money runs out – and considering the budget, I’m sure we’ll be fine.
I could have timed this better. But Abbey wanted to make her choice and he wanted to get married and I find myself in the midst of a million things on the ‘to do’ list and no fattening foods to make the journey easier.
Did I mention I’m on a health quest?
A quest to rid myself of the sodas and sugars and fats that have taken up so much of my life – when my metabolism still existed.
How I miss that metabolism.
I’m halfway into the idea of convincing Lindsey or Charlie that their wedding present to me should be bitching me into shape, but I think that’s somewhat presumptuous – I’m bigger than they are, so my major defense would be the squish defense.
No matter how quick they are, I’m sure my body would catch them.
I’m implementing a sort of weight loss contest among those around me – to see if that will help motivate me and the rest to start behaving better.
Making better choices. Watching out for whole grains and fibers and vitamins and such – getting rid of the more unhealthy foods to enjoy only on occasion.
Cross your fingers for me – this will be hard, because I’m an incredible cook when I cook and I haven’t the foggiest how to do so healthily.
hmm. At least I switched to ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ a while ago… right? Right?!!?
Le sigh.
French fries, how I crave you.
Don’t fear butter!
In my totally unexpert opinion, butter is better for you than any processed substitute out there, plus the taste and texture will actually help satisfy cravings and quell your hunger. Plus in cooking, there are some things that substitutes just don’t do well.
That whole portion size thing? I suck at that. But here are a few tricks I learned:
* Eat what you crave, but figure out why you crave it and try to substitute something healthier. If it’s potato chips or fries, maybe you need salt so eat some pretzels.
* Eat real food that has ALOT of flavor, and you’ll be satisfied with less. One bite of dark chocolate usually satisfies my craving, while I can never get enough milk chocolate. Switch to using real Asiago and Parmesan, or Fontina if you need a meltier cheese, and you can use alot less but still have cheese flavor and texture. For creamy dishes, try throwing in chevre, which is actually pretty low in fat.
* There’s some lady who swears by European style dining habits, and some things she’s said have guilted me into eating less. First, decide if you’d be happy just to have half of what you think you want. Second, don’t eat while doing anything else – sit down at a table with a knife and fork even for a snack.
* Eat snacks when you’re hungry. Just choose things that are good for you.
If all else fails, I have tons of cookbooks with low-fat, vegetarian, and vegan recipes to get you on track